Theresa May has failed the victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy and this is why

During the World War II Blitz, Winston Churchill habitually rushed to where the worst bombing had laid waste to people’s homes even while the fires were still raging. If rubble blocked the streets, he would simply walk to the East End or take a boat down the river.

His aim was to offer instant support and hope to everyday folk who had lost everything. Although ever-defiant to the Nazi threat, his eyes would often swell with tears of pain and then someone in the crowd would call out, "Look he really cares!"

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Compare the reflex actions and empathy of an aristocrat born in the Victorian age, who had never known poverty or even poured his own bath, with yesterday’s aloof visit by our current prime minister Theresa May to the site of the catastrophic fire at Grenfell Tower in west London. What instinct or advice persuaded her to avoid angry residents also facing devastation, opting to hide behind a wall instead for a private meeting with the emergency services?

Downing Street cited ‘security concerns’ for her no-show – although such matters never deterred Churchill - but her ever-growing band of critics once again detected an out-of-touch control-freakery.

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Today, by contrast, the 91-year old Queen (whose eyes were also watering) and her grandson Prince William considered it perfectly safe to visit the survivors of what one of the worst disasters to befall peacetime Britain. Mrs May’s bad call looks in danger of sparking an overwhelming national outcry of anger. Every prime minister’s duty is to embody the national spirit at times of tragedy; she has spectacularly failed to do so.

The Queen & Prince William visit Grenfell Tower residents – before Theresa May

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16 Jun 2017

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Mrs May’s failure is all the more evident, when compared to the ubiquitous photographs of her political rival and Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, giving avuncular hugs to the distressed. Sure, the cameras were watching, but in the twenty-first century that is part of it too. During the London riots in 2011 the then mayor Boris Johnson was captured by TV cameras when confronted by a Clapham hairdresser describing her terror when bricks started smashing through her salon window. There was no connection; just this jarring lack of understanding of those outside the golden circles of fame, money and power. It is not enough to take the credit in the good times; bad times call for something much more.

Mrs May did not smirk, of course, but nor did she take her cue on leadership in a crisis from her predecessor Churchill. Compassion for our troubles, after all, is key in those we elect to lead us. When yet another US school shooting saw under-sized bodybags being wheeled out of a playground, we saw the then clearly moved President Obama shed a quiet tear. We sensed his pain and his frustration and we believed in his commitment to try to stop the senseless waste of life.

When Canadians were caught up in the horrific attack on London Bridge just a fortnight ago, their prime minister Justin Trudeau (already famous for hugging refugees) took to the public stage on Twitter to offer advice and support.

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What instinct or advice persuaded her to avoid angry residents also facing devastation?

When Princess Diana died in a car crash in a Paris underpass in 1997, the then prime minister Tony Blair encapsulated the national outpouring of grief on TV by describing her, with an appropriately tremulous tone, as the People’s Princess. That time it was Buckingham Palace who got it so wrong, who failed to empathise with the prevailing emotions and stayed behind closed doors. Looks like they are making sure they don’t make that mistake again.

Mrs May was roundly condemned for her robotic and cold style during the recent election campaign. She endlessly repeated meaningless slogans, avoided TV debates, her staff kept journalists away behind locked doors, and her so-called public meetings were farcical gatherings of the party faithful dutifully waving placards.

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The only emotion she displayed – a quivering lip - was when it became clear that the nation was in no mood to deliver the landslide election result she had considered her due. Her promises to her own party to change look incomparably hollow now.

No-one wants a premier in the throes of uncontrolled emotion, someone seemingly at the mercy of sentiment rather than led by reason and action. But nor does a nation already traumatised by terrorist attacks and the huge uncertainties of Brexit, want a prime minister apparently disdainful and perhaps fearful of her own people.